Pedro González
Journalist
The rules of democracy have long been unwillingly accepted, or directly boycotted, in an increasingly large part of the geography that until now enjoyed the “worst system of government to the exclusion of all others”. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly common to delegitimise election results when they favour centre and moderate right-wing options. Because of its emblematic history, France is already one of the clearest examples where the majority opinion of society through its voters is most brazenly disqualified by the nostalgics of the rancour and the supposedly pending or permanent revolution.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who not only won a landslide victory for his re-election as head of the country, but also a considerable lead in the legislative elections, has also obtained the endorsement of the Constitutional Council for the star legislative measure of his mandate: the reform of the pension system, and essentially the raising of the retirement age from 62 to 64. It was neither an unexpected reform that he had not included in his programme nor was it approved without sufficient legislative backing, since a large part of the Republicans (LR), the former Gaullists, voted broadly in favour.
The “Nine Wise Men” (as they are commonly called) who make up the Constitutional Council (CC), unanimously and unequivocally endorsed the essence of the reform, admitting in passing that “there was no unconstitutional behaviour in the government’s procedures”, although they warned that it could have done otherwise. To top it all off, the CC rejected a request for a shared initiative referendum (RIP), filed by the left, which, had it been admitted, would have enabled the 4.8 million signatures needed to hold an unprecedented consultation that would have overturned the approved reform to be collected.
Apart from the content of the reform itself, which does not even bring the French retirement age into line with those of their colleagues and European neighbours in Germany, Italy and Spain, the reality is that, as soon as the CC’s decree became known, the reaction of the most extremist forces, as well as the trade unions, demonstrated their unequivocal willingness to impose their theses and not to respect the rules of democracy.
The sulphurous leader of La France Insoumise (LFI), Jean-Luc Mélenchon, called to “continue the struggle”, in which his followers have supported the incidents, destruction and looting throughout France in recent months. The communist-rooted General Confederation of Labour (CGT) also called for “popular mobilisation”, a call that was immediately translated by at least a good part of its militants and sympathisers into the usual fires, riots and destruction in Paris and many other departmental capitals of the country.
The general secretary of the CGT, Sophie Binet, has proposed to the other seven big French trade union organisations a joint and coordinated action to raise the level of the protests to converge on May 1, which she predicts as a “historic date” to overturn what has been approved by Congress and the Senate and endorsed by the CC.
Nor is the far right, led by the oft-defeated presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, lagging behind. The leader of the National Rally (RN) at least used less revolutionary language, stating that “the political fate of the pension reform is not sealed”, while calling on her voters to prepare for alternation [in power] and to reverse this unnecessary and unjust reform”.
Many local analysts suggest that the strategy of the left and the unions is to turn France into an ungovernable country, in the wake of what their counterparts in Latin America are progressively implementing in several countries on that continent, where either the left governs or, if the right comes to power, it will be continually delegitimised, as well as being subjected to the continuous pressure of riots, violent demonstrations and constant harassment of each and every one of its representatives in the different levels of government.
This is not good news. France, perhaps too much exalted by the story of its Revolution of 1789, may now lead the way down the slope of the demise of democracy as we know it, once the left has dusted off one of its guiding political principles of the first half of the 20th century: that democracy was only a stage towards the final goal, which is none other than revolution.
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